I begin this morning with a question, “Are you a why, a what or a how person?”
What people ask: What do I need to do next? What do I need to do to get this job done? What do I need to do to get to this person to notice me? What can I do to get more people to church? What can I say to so and so to help them come to faith in God?
Or maybe you are a “how” person. They ask questions like:
How can I finish this project by 5 pm? How can I make this sermon both Biblical and interesting? How are we going to get everybody to where they need to be this afternoon? How can we get the money we need for Christmas presents? How can I help my friend understand that Jesus truly loves him?
Or maybe you are a why person. They ask questions like: Why did I have to come to church this morning? Why is Pastor Jim asking us all these questions? Why did Ford finish first, second, and third in last weekend’s NASCAR race? Why did she wear those shoes with that outfit? Why did my close friend have to die that way?
Some of us are probably what people and other of us are probably how people and some of us are probably why people. Most likely, we are a mixture of all three.
However, when it comes to matters of faith and life, any question that stands across our life path is one that needs to be addressed in some way that will help us move forward by faith with God. That is the reason for this summer sermon series.
My purpose in this series was to answer questions that people had of God in a manner that would strengthen your faith and deepen your relationship with Lord. I hope and pray that it has.
We conclude our series this morning with a couple of questions that are asked perhaps as much as those related to suffering and evil – questions about the presence of God and our life purpose:
“Why does it sometimes feel like God is not near and other times it feels like he is right beside you and even holding you up? “
“God why do you keep me here? I have failed You so many times, been unkind, been unforgiving, and not happy with myself. Knowing that You are so immensely generous only brings me back to the question. “God, why do you keep me here?”
Our text for the morning tells the story of two people, devastated by the death of Christ, who experiences what our first questioner asks. We read in verse 17, “They stopped short, sadness written across their faces.” I think that we can easily imagine the slumped shoulders and the deep sadness on their faces. God seems a thousand miles away and the hopes that were so high just a few days earlier are dashed to the ground.
Why does it feel like God is not near and other times it feels like he is right beside you and even holding you up?
The inspirational “Footprints in the Sand” gives us a personal perspective that many have found helpful over the years:
Footprints in The Sand read here
According to the website, footprints in the sand.com, the author of this moving poem was a woman named Mary Stevenson who wrote the poem back in the 1936 at the age of 14 as a reflection on the events of her life. (It was only later in life that she sought , with encouragement by friends, and was granted, rights of authorship by a scientific examination of an early hand-written copy of the poem.)
But what does the Bible have to say about all of this? Why does it seem that God is often far away and at other times closer to us? Let’s look closer at our main text and a few other passages as well.
In Isaiah 55 we read in verses 8 and 9, “My thoughts are completely different from yours,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
Then, over in 1 Corinthians 1, Saint Paul gives us a parallel perspective, in verse 25, to our question as he talks about the gospel and the responses to it that he has encountered in his ministry. “This “foolish” plan of God is far wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is far stronger than the greatest of human strength.”
One of the reasons is that God seems both near and far is that God’s ways and thoughts are far above ours. He is God and while He wants to have a personal relationship with each one of us, He is beyond us. His plans, his work, are far more comprehensive than we can imagine.
His plans and purposes are not on the same level as the plans of the great human thinkers and philosophers. It is a qualitatively different plan because it deals with spiritual realities that we humans have a strong tendency to reject outright, try to modify, or finally accept. God, therefore, cannot be grasped and placed, as some have put it, into a box for us to manipulate as we wish.
We see this in our text of the morning as we hear it in the description of Jesus given by these two disheartened followers in verses 19 and 21:
“He was a prophet who did wonderful miracles. He was a mighty teacher, highly regarded by both God and all the people…. We had thought he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel.”
They saw Jesus as a prophet and a mighty teacher and they thought He was the Messiah. However, the arrest and crucifixion had dashed their hopes that the Messiah would rescue Israel. The Crucifixion was not included in their plans for Jesus. It did not fit into their box. God seemed far away to them.
We are also aware in this story that God appears to be intentionally distant because as we read in verse 16, “they didn’t know who he was, because God kept them from recognizing him.” God sometimes keeps us “in the dark” for reasons that we may not understand until later.
But then, the situation goes in the opposite direction. He breaks bread with them at the end of their weary journey and we read in verse 31, “Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him!”
They have an “a-aha” experience! God comes near to them! In fact, they are right in front of Him! But, then… “At that moment he disappeared!” Jesus, having walked for a quite a distance, having explained himself through the Scripture, without being recognized only to reveal Himself to these two weary people, turns around and simply disappears before their eyes! What gives?
God is God and He chooses to appear and disappear as He sees fit. Yet, as they reflect on their moments with Jesus, they make this important statement, “Didn’t our hearts feel strangely warm as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?”
I like what Rick Warren says in regards to our relationship with God, “You are as close to God as you choose to be. Intimate friendship with God is a choice, not an accident.”
God has been to them! God has been personal and close with them! God walked with them! God finally revealed Himself to them!
The physical manifestation of our Lord changes and He is no longer seen by this two followers at that time and place. But, in the more important way, – here in the heart and soul – He remains because the warmth they experienced in their walk and conversation with Jesus as He explains the scriptures regarding Himself is the presence of God through the Holy Spirit.
Is God then far away or is He closer than we think? Reflect on this passage. Reflect on the story of the prodigal son (who is us) and his father (who is God). Though the son goes to a distant country, he finally comes home and finds his dad waiting for him.
God is spirit. He goes when and where He wills. If He seems distant, we need to consider these possibilities before us, as well as the wall that sin in our lives puts up between Him and us.
We have heard the phrase, “If God seems far away, guess who moved?” The standard answer is “Us.”
Here is something to think about: What if it was God who had moved? Jesus after all said to the disciples, “follow me.”
Maybe God seems far away at times, because He is on the move and we are standing still rather than following Him and doing the work that He has called us to do. This makes the second question, “God why do you keep me here?” perhaps easier to answer.
Despite the fact that we have, as clearly stated by the questioner, “failed You so many times, been unkind, been unforgiving, and not happy with myself,” Paul reminds us, “that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” God’s love for us is so strong and so powerful that as Paul also writes, “nothing can ever separate us from His love.”
God is not finished with us. We still have a purpose and place here on earth. The two weary and disheartened followers should serve as a reminder that God wastes nothing and that while we have, and will continue to have, moments of despair and hopelessness, God uses even those moments to accomplish His good work in our lives and thus provide us with meaning.
God wastes nothing. We see that in our main text for this morning and in the truth that nothing can separate us from God’s love.
Speaking of waste, recycling has proven immensely important in our lives. Many products we now buy are made from recycling. It has allowed us to clean up our environment and reuse items that were once considered “junk.”
God has the ability and the desire to recycle the “wastes” in our lives by taking the bad and the ugly and the discouraging (in other words the junk) and creating what is good and right and just out of them. He does this in a variety of ways through the power and presence of Holy Spirit.
Why am I here? We are here for good reasons. We are here because God made it so. We are here because God has an agenda for our lives that is better than anything we can know or experience on the road of life. Let us give ourselves over to God in a greater way today. Amen.
Rick Warren quote is from the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, published by Zondervan Press.
The Foot Prints in the Sand text and story can be seen at the website, footprintsinthesand.com (Mary Stevenson © 1984)
